


Afternoon Delight

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Follow the North Star [41]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:25:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “So I’m a genius,” Liam says. “A genius that makes threesomes happen.”“Only threesome you’re ever going to make happen, for the record,” Mike says, and has no idea why Liam grins at him in response.“Tell me I’m a genius,” Liam says.“You’re an interfering little shit with no boundaries,” Mike says. “Or morals. Who committed a fucking—”Liam leans across the table and interrupts him with a kiss.





	Afternoon Delight

Liam’s homecomings are getting progressively more ridiculous.

Today, Liam announces himself with a yell of “I am a genius and you should congratulate me!” and the slap of what’s presumably his bag on the tile in the front hall, even though Mike’s told him at least a dozen times to put his shit in the laundry room.

Mike sighs at the spinach. He’s starting to wonder if Liam is capable of returning from a road trip without immediately informing Mike of gossip he _knows_ Mike doesn’t give two shits about. For months it’s been all ‘Mike, I think my teammates are us reincarnated’ (never mind the fact that they’re both still kicking), ‘Mike, the plot’s thickened!’, ‘Mike, love triangles are so passe, don’t you think? I’m team threesome’.

Mike would like, just once, maybe a ‘hey Mike’. ‘Hey Mike, missed you this week’. Except no. Not that. More ‘hey Mike, missed your dick, want me to sit on it?’.

That’s not even an unrealistic hope. That was basically Liam’s greeting two times out of three last season, and the other third was him just not bothering to say it and using his initiative instead. Mike told him to cut it out after he said something of similar substance when Mike’s brother was visiting, but now he regrets it. He’ll take another two months of not being able to look Tom in the eye if it means he doesn’t have to hear about any North Star relationship he isn’t directly _involved_ in. He’ll take less talking about that one too.

“Hi Mike,” Mike says dryly, when Liam makes it into the kitchen. It’ll be about three seconds before Liam filches one of the cherry tomatoes he’s just finished washing. “How was your week?”

“I talked to you last night,” Liam says dismissively, pressing a kiss to the back of Mike’s neck. 

“And something huge happened since last night?” Mike asks.

“Nah,” Liam says, then yelps when Mike slaps the hand reaching around him. “I just want one!”

“It’s never just one with you,” Mike says. 

Liam wraps his arms around Mike’s waist. Mike isn’t sure if he’s planning another tomato theft attempt or he just wants to cuddle. They’re both equally likely.

“Hi Mike,” Liam says, chilly nose between Mike’s shoulder-blades. “How was your week?”

“Better,” Mike says. He still prefers ‘I missed your dick’, but he’s got lunch to make. Can’t multi-task sex and lunch. Well, he’s sure some people can and do, but that’s not really either of their thing. “Wanna help me make the salad?”

“Nope,” Liam says, but when Mike hands him a knife and directs him towards the vegetables that need chopping, he starts contentedly mutilating them. “Can I tell you about how I’m a genius now?”

“Fine,” Mike sighs, then, less than a minute later, completely horrified, interrupts Liam’s cheerful monologue with, “You _committed a felony_?”

“It wasn’t a felony,” Liam says. 

“It was _absolutely_ a fucking felony,” Mike says.

“Let me get to the good part,” Liam complains.

“Does the good part involve _more felonies_?” Mike asks.

“I promise that was the only felony,” Liam says, which is not a sentence Mike anticipated hearing from his — well, his fucking idiot. “Oh, come on, take your face out of your hands you drama queen.”

Mike does, but only because his hands smell like marinade. He does not think responding to _forcible confinement_ with some fucking disbelief is dramatic. He takes the peppers off the heat, because he can usually half listen to Liam’s stories while cooking, but felonies merit his undivided attention. The chicken’s got a good twenty minutes to go in the oven, so it might be safe. “Keep going,” he snaps.

“Oh _now_ you want to hear the gossip,” Liam says, but immediately does, because he is probably physically incapable of not gloating.

“We were having phone sex while you were next door to the teammates you _kidnapped_?” Mike interrupts again.

“You get fixated on the weirdest things,” Liam says.

Mike sputters. He can’t help it. “Do I need to turn you in or something?”

“You can’t,” Liam says. “You can’t rat on me. There’s a rule.”

Mike is not letting Liam entrap him in a discussion about marriage. He is not taking that goddamn bait. He is not that stupid.

“Not how it works,” he says instead, side-stepping marriage altogether. “I wouldn’t be able to be _compelled_ to incriminate you, but I could absolutely turn you in on my own volition.”

“You’d turn me in?” Liam says, with a dramatically tragic expression.

Mike rolls his eyes and checks the chicken. “Set the table,” he says.

“I’m not done telling you about my supposed felony,” Liam protests.

“You can tell me over lunch,” Mike says. “Set the table, brat.”

Liam makes more noise than strictly necessary doing it while Mike multi-tasks sauteing the peppers and doing his best to salvage the mess Liam’s made of the salad. Liam completely forgets his insistence on finishing his story while he shovels food into his mouth like he hasn’t eaten in days. 

“How do you make these taste so good?” Liam asks — or at least Mike thinks he asks, since he’s talking through a mouthful of peppers, which he’s had a somewhat combative relationship with, probably because he’d never had any but the limp, sad, barely seasoned shit terrible restaurants bill as a ‘seasonal vegetables’ or whatever the fuck.

Liam goes back into the kitchen for seconds while Mike’s still got half a plate left. Mike would be more flattered if he didn’t know Liam’s stomach was a black hole. “Okay,” Liam says, stabbing at a cherry tomato. “So like, Asenov totally wimped out and let them out at like, six in the morning.”

“What time did you stick them in there?” Mike asks.

“Like, eleven?” Liam says.

“At night?” Mike asks, hopeful, then, when his hope is thwarted with one look at Liam’s face, “You had them in there for _nineteen hours_?”

“You do math really fast,” Liam says. 

“Fitz _gerald_ ,” Mike says.

“It wouldn’t have worked if it was only for a couple hours!” Liam protests. “You don’t know how freaking stubborn they are.”

“No?” Mike asks. 

“And Victor left them food and drinks and stuff,” Liam says. “It’s not like we just stuck them in there and left them to rot or anything. Victor and I traded shifts. We were being responsible.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mike says. “How does this story not end in you getting arrested?”

“Because it worked!” Liam says. “Because I’m a genius! Keep up, babe.”

“ _What_ worked?” Mike asks. He doesn’t even know the point of this now. Can’t see the forest through the fucking felonies.

“Okay, so, Val wimped out,” Liam says. 

“You already said that,” Mike says, refraining from saying that Asenov sounds like a reasonable person, less because it’ll irritate Liam and more because that obviously isn’t true. He can’t be, if he went along with this in the first place. What the hell is _up_ with that team? It can’t just be Liam’s bad influence, because none of this kind of shit happened on the Oilers. Or the Red Wings, as far as Mike’s aware, and since Liam is incapable of holding his tongue, he’s pretty sure he would be.

“It’s called _setting the scene_ , Michael,” Liam says smugly.

How is this Mike’s fucking life. How did Mike let this kid become his fucking life.

“By all means, dear, set the damn scene,” Mike says, and has to bite back a grin at the slightly terrified look on Liam’s face. Nothing freaks Liam out more than endearments coming out of Mike’s mouth, he’s learned. It’s the only reason he uses them. Yet call him a brat and he lights up. Go figure.

“So Val wimped out and made Victor let them out,” Liam says, once his terror’s subsided. “Which I found out about because like, an hour before my alarm I wake up to people yelling next door.”

He gives Mike this look like ‘can you believe the gall of it, how dare these people I locked in a room take offense’. Mike’s starting to worry if he rolls his eyes any harder he’ll detach a retina or something.

“So I went to see if everything was okay,” Liam says.

“You went to be nosy,” Mike corrects.

“Like a _concerned citizen_ , I went to check on my teammates,” Liam says.

Mike is far too mature to cough ‘nosy’ under his breath. That’s something Liam would do.

“So I get there and Harry’s flipping out, which is pretty normal, honestly, and Victor’s creeping, which is also pretty normal,” Liam says. “They told me Connie had escaped, but I’m pretty sure he was just hiding in the bathroom.” 

“Riveting,” Mike says. “I can definitely see how this makes you a genius.”

Liam rolls his eyes so hard Mike’s worried _he’s_ going to detach a retina. “There was _evidence_ ,” he says.

“Evidence of what?” Mike asks.

“Of the _deed_ ,” Liam says.

Mike looks at him.

“Sex,” Liam clarifies, like Mike didn’t know what ‘the deed’ meant, and was confused, rather than once again questioning everything in his life that led him to this moment, sitting across the table from someone who unironically uses ‘the deed’. Mike’s confiscating every fucking one of the thinly veiled porn he calls romance novels. “They were dressed, but like, there was underwear on the floor by the bed, and Victor looked super embarrassed, so I’m thinking he walked in on something.”

“The entirety of your evidence is that there was underwear on the floor and your teammate looked embarrassed?” Mike says. “That seems pretty circumstantial.”

“You slept naked beside someone you aren’t fucking before?” Liam asks.

“Point,” Mike allows.

“Plus I’m ninety-nine percent sure the foil on the bedside table was a condom wrapper,” Liam says. “I didn’t want to let on I knew by taking a closer look though.” 

“Of course not,” Mike says.

“So I’m a genius,” Liam says. “A genius that makes threesomes happen.”

“Only threesome you’re ever going to make happen, for the record,” Mike says, and has no idea why Liam grins at him in response.

“Tell me I’m a genius,” Liam says.

“You’re an interfering little shit with no boundaries,” Mike says. “Or morals. Who committed a fucking—”

Liam leans across the table and interrupts him with a kiss.

“I wasn’t done,” Mike mutters, when Liam pulls away.

“You are way too fixated on the felony,” Liam says. “Fixate on the positives!”

“I fail to see any,” Mike says.

“They don’t know I know,” Liam says. “But I know. And I know they don’t know I know. This is going to be _fun_.” 

The amount of glee he says that with is frankly terrifying. Mike suddenly feels really fucking awful for his poor unsuspecting teammates. 

Mike pinches his nose. “Not a headache,” he says, because he feels Liam about to ask. “Just wondering when ‘I missed your dick, want me to sit on it?’ became ‘honey, I’m home, I kidnapped my teammates for the purposes of sex and now I have to gloat about my evil plans for them’.”

“You make it sound tawdry,” Liam says, voice closer, and Mike opens his eyes to see Liam swing a leg over to sit in his lap. Four hundred plus pounds on a chair sounds like it’s asking for trouble, but these things are sturdy, so Mike just settles his hands on his hips.

“I missed your dick, want me to sit on it?” Liam asks. The laughter in his voice doesn’t make Mike like the question any less.

“You technically are,” Mike points out.

“You want to be super literal, or you want to fuck me?” Liam asks.

That is not a particularly difficult decision.

“Bed?” Mike says, and pretends not to recognize the tune when Liam starts humming ‘Afternoon Delight’ on their way up the stairs.


End file.
